It has all the hallmarks of a classic political scandal: a combative leader’s forceful denials, family members and intimates caught up in burgeoning but slow-moving investigations, prosecutors leaning on a tarnished former aide with tales to tell,...

Relations between Israel and Jordan, neighboring states that signed a peace treaty in 1994, have hit rock bottom after twin decisions by the Israeli government that have been widely seen as an affront to Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
The first was...

Israel’s Labor Party on Monday elected political newcomer Avi Gabbay as its leader in hopes the former telecommunications executive will help unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Gabbay won 52% of the vote in a runoff election against Amir Peretz,...

Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog was routed in the first round of the Labor Party leadership election Tuesday, as the political movement that led the country for years continues its struggle to regain relevance.
The primary election was won by...

“Good fiction” means something different to everyone. To me, good fiction not only entertains; it educates, it elucidates. At its best, the word is mightier than the sword (so said the Assyrian sage Ahiqar, 2 1/2 millenniums before Edward Bulwer-Lytton...

Ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Sunday endorsed a controversial bill to enshrine Israel’s character as a Jewish state despite criticism that it would leave the country’s one-fifth Arab minority as second-class citizens.
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To the editor: The most important thing about Oded Ravivi’s op-ed article is that it refers to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria. This reference is the key to why there will never be peace in Palestine while the right-wing Likud and religious parties...

A dispute over the reform of public broadcasting has plunged Israel’s coalition government into a crisis, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to threaten to dissolve parliament and hold a snap election to block a plan to begin independent...

Israel’s parliament has passed into law a controversial travel ban to keep out people who support boycotts of the country or the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The legislation, which was backed by the ruling right-wing coalition,...

The Palestinian group Hamas said on Monday that it chose a hard-line military chief as its new political leader in the Gaza Strip, a move seen by analysts as increasing the risk of a new outbreak of war between Gaza’s Islamist rulers and Israel....

Israel’s parliament approved a controversial bill late Monday giving the government authority to retroactively legalize thousands of homes in West Bank settlements and dozens of unauthorized hilltop outposts that sit on privately owned Palestinian land....

The city of Jerusalem, emboldened by anticipated support from the Trump administration, on Sunday authorized the construction of some 560 new homes in areas of the city claimed by the Palestinians as a capital of their future state.
The announcement...

A criminal investigation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that may involve discussion of a secret deal that would benefit him and a newspaper owner and gifts from a Hollywood producer could be serious enough to threaten his hold on power,...

Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, long connected to Israel’s political elite, has emerged as among the wealthy individuals whose gift-giving to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under review as part of a corruption investigation.
The prime...

Israeli police interrogated Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in what the attorney general’s office said was a criminal investigation into allegations that the prime minister illegally accepted favors from business executives.
Investigators questioned the...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was grilled by police investigators for more than three hours at his office Monday night, opening what could be a politically damaging criminal investigation into suspicions that he improperly accepted gifts.
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For nearly three decades, governments around the world have insisted that the best way to end the most intractable conflict in the Middle East is to trade land for peace, creating an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza...

Update: President Obama on Thursday slapped Russia with new penalties for meddling in the U.S. presidential election, kicking out dozens of suspected spies and imposing banking restrictions on five people and four organizations the administration says...

Two days after a wave of wildfires spread throughout the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Haifa and forced tens of thousands to flee, residents returned to pick through the blackened debris of their homes while pondering what had started it all.
Israeli Prime...